Monday, 27 November 2017

Phantom Spies

Meet Oliver and
his family the Snatchers. The Snatchers aren’t your ordinary family their cat
burglars. By night they infiltrate mansions and steal anything of value.
Oliver’s job is to use his computer skills to cut the alarms. He is always
nervous and worried that one day they will get caught and end up in gaol. His
sister Vera is light on her feet and does acrobatics to get passed the
infra-red security beams, while their mum plans the mission, and dad is expert
at cracking safes.

This chapter
book would appeal to 7-9 year olds, and, with varying sentence length, is
action-packed, told in the third person, and deals with making decisions, and
knowing right from wrong. Oliver’s best friend is the family Robot Roger: he is
the only one he can really confide in about his concerns for his family, and he
can’t tell his friends at school. He pleads with his family to stop but no one
will listen.

After being
caught on their last job they are offered work for a secret government agency
PHANTOM, as spies. But, at the government headquarters, Roger is taken from
Oliver, and reclaimed as a counter terrorism cyborg. The government has plans
for the Snatcher family and prepares them for their first mission. Meanwhile
the sinister Professor Withers has secretly altered Roger with his new program.
When Roger returns to the family, he is not the same: he is no longer friendly
toward Oliver or the rest of the family and is unpredictable.